We didn't have a regular foreman at the Diamond Dot. George Hendricks took charge around the house, an' Omaha was a sort of ridin' over-see-er; but Jabez himself tended to even little details when he felt like it. When he didn't feel that way, any one else who thought of it did. After the round-up Flap Jack decided to go on a bender. I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted, an' finally I sent him into Jabez.
Flappy came away just tearin' mad. "He's the hardest-hearted old tyrant ever breathed," sez Flappy to me.
"What now?" sez I.
"Last time I came back I was a day late," sez Flappy. "He fair frothed at the mouth at it, an' made me promise to give him a month's notice next time. How's a man to know a month ahead when he's goin' to be in the notion for a bender. I'm fair ravin' for it now; but like's not I'll be all out o' the notion in a month."
"Then you'll be a sight o' money ahead," sez I.
"Money? What's money for? Can you buy a thirst like mine with money? Why, I could take this thirst o' mine to a city an' get independent rich, just rentin' it out by the night. I've watched fellers drinkin' when they didn't crave it, an' it hurt 'em somethin' dreadful. If you don't want it, you can't enjoy it until you're under the influence of it, an' after you're under the influence of it half the fun o' drinkin' it is gone."
Flappy had studied this question more'n airy other man I ever see, an' it was edicatin' to hear him lecture on it.
"The's only one way to get around ol' Cast Steel," sez I, winkin'; so he got Barbie to beg for him when she went in that evenin', an' she got Jabez to let him go next day; but after Jabez'd had time to think it over, he sez to me, "Now see what I've done—I've let that child wheedle me into changin' my mind an' lettin' a man break his word."
"Well, he needed it mighty bad," sez I.
"An' another thing; it ain't no fit thing for a gal child to be beggin' for a man to go get drunk," sez Jabez. "Maybe not," sez I, "but he sure needed it."